Toll Buys Golf Course Community From WCI

WCI Communities Inc., in its largest land deal since emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year, sold the Parkland Golf & Country Club, an unfinished 790-acre Florida project, to Toll Brothers Inc. for more than $50 million, including debt.

The deal, which closed late Thursday, continues WCI’s repositioning after spending 13 months in bankruptcy court. Instead of the upscale homes and multimillion-dollar condos that it overbuilt during the boom, it is currently building smaller, more affordable properties, some with prices starting at $140,000. Toll, the nation’s largest luxury builder, is known for sprawling suburban homes with high-end finishes.

Pennsylvania-based Toll paid about $37 million and assumed $16 million of community development-district debt, funds used for local infrastructure. While the development’s 18-hole Greg Norman-designed golf course is complete, the main club house is partially finished. (Another 43,000-square-foot facility with a spa, restaurants and tennis courts is complete and open.) Toll plans 350 new homes, with 25 different designs measuring between 1,800 and 5,400 square feet. Sales start in January for the homes priced in the mid-$400,000 range and go up to $1.5 million.

The deal also includes 25 unsold homes built with defective Chinese drywall, which homeowners complain generates sulfurous odors and corrosion that tarnishes metals and causes appliances such as air conditioners to fail. The U.S. government recommends consumers remove any possibly faulty drywall. Toll will repair the homes.